Over the next few days, four more groups of soul forms attacked the pair, but still in small numbers with a limited number of gold tiers. The barriers placed held everything back with ease as Adret eliminated the hordes beyond. Akevorax took on two tasks this entire time.
His actual responsibility was to quickly check the battlefield in advance in case anything too powerful lurked beyond Adret’s senses, but so far this concern never appeared. While he spent almost 90% of his time focused on learning Draconis. In these few days, he made exemplary progress in certain elements… And little to none in some others.
Water came naturally as he already figured out a connotation which deeply linked it to Ice. Additionally, he quickly came to see it as a form of resistance, but this consideration spread more to the concept of liquids as a whole than purely Water. He argued that since Water represented a fundamental case for all fluids, it only made sense that this element actually controlled its own viscosity to restrict foes.
However, he found that its effects as a minor healing spell actually mattered a lot more… He probably should’ve mentioned that visualisation first.
No one ever said that great languages limited him to one visualisation per spell. Many older, wiser beings formed several interpretations of the same word through their lives, whether that came from physically understanding the world or a spiritual relation formed from experiences. Many correct forms existed, and these primary elements happened to be the easiest to comprehend at most times.
In terms of complex types. Lightning took some time, from a dimensional standpoint, as did Space and Psychic. But it was those highly esoteric concepts that completely eluded him.
Life, Light, Dark, Soul, Mana, and Fate. Elements, and powers, he made avid use of, but couldn’t uncover no matter what he tried. For some he struggled from a calculative standpoint, but in most cases not even Imperfect visualisations formed. Obviously others like Time, Death, and Destruction also existed in the dozens, Akevorax never bothered with these ones.
These were elements he hardly ever made use of!
Right now, he held off from elements and returned to his original goal of two-word spells. From the list mentioned before, Lightning Arc and Space Cut slotted in well with current needs. The presence of soul forms in this sub-realm gave weight to any fast attacks, and he selected two elements with that precisely in mind, supplemented by the fact anything related to Ice or Fire did nothing to help. He considered wind element spells for a short while, but believed it unnecessary. The orb excellently dealt with minor threats, while he’d prefer if a single, powerful spell dealt with a similarly strong foe.
Lightning Arc made the most sense as far as two-word spells went too, as the bolts of energy naturally curved under certain circumstances. Even if taken more literally, all lightning arced from one point to another.
This just ensured the spell’s target remained fixed while an enlarged source of mana empowered its damage.
Lightning represented a simpler energy, like the heat of a flame or the momentum of a moving object. This placed it into an incredibly awkward position by elemental standards, but in nature, it quite literally allowed everything to function. This transfer of energy acted as a signal, an important factor in how brains moved muscles or even worked for that matter. And yet the bolts of lightning which rained downward contained only destruction, wreaking havoc on those hit by the wrathful weather. Like many natural disasters, it plainly represented the benevolent and malevolent at once.
Tornadoes were winds of incredible multitude; tsunamis a tidal force which submerged coastlines; earthquakes the shattering of land itself; and volcanos a fiery eruption of the inner world…
But all exist passively in nature too. Winds carried seeds and allowed for flight of countless species; tides sent countless boats and fish down their paths; the land itself was a bountiful gift to those not borne of the ocean; and fire had always been considered the spark of civilization, the moment where intelligence overcame pure might.
Lightning existed in a similar tandem to any of those monstrous disasters. A smiting force formed from the accumulation of countless necessary ingredients.
And so, his Lightning formed without any hint of compassion.
It paralysed and smited with pure intent.
To then create a controlled arc, was he not asking to control a disaster? Although… Was there a reason he could not control it?
His problem with Lightning Arc came in that control step. He told himself to just do it, but without a proper visualisation, all amounts of congratulations fell on deaf ears. From a controlled path to utterly uncontrolled Lightning which simply flew to the desired point, he tried idea after idea.
A solution finally came to him after some thought on using more of the physical process.
Lightning sought to travel the path of least resistance, so he wasted time and power by ever controlling the lightning himself. It demanded far too much on any individual. And so, he said, “Create a path it will seek. The path I desire, but not one which strangles the force of nature. It’s far less intensive.”
It took hours for him to figure out a Perfect visualisation for both Lightning and Lightning Arc, but things only started there. Half the casting process remained unfinished. Because of its dimension’s oddity, the spiderweb of paths under which lightning formed, he spent almost the same length of time figuring out how fluctuations in its densities even worked.
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And now he didn’t even get to test it!
In the distance, a massive translucent barrier shot up again and shielding off the pair from more soul forms in every direction. Akevorax squinted at the sight beyond this time round though, as far more than just hundreds came, at a glance he saw through the ruse nearby. Roughly 200 of the weakest soul forms surrounded the barrier, stuck in a stupor as his array struck their souls over and over, even the gold tier types with Minds entered this range! The 18 of the latter type also stood still, and Adret at his side stood up to wipe them out after a quick check in every direction.
“Hold on. We have company this time,” he spoke with eyes open into the far distance.
Behind the current line of invisible creatures, about a kilometre away from them all, he noticed that mithril tier soul form with ease. While the creatures appeared as literal blobs of soul power, when using appropriate spells, that one in the far back clearly took on the appearance of an arachnid.
Only sort of… Its legs were all thick, like the sort seen on a golem made to transport heavy weights. The body matched a humanoid creature, partially, but with an extreme hunch which curved at a right-angle, and a head definitely more like an insect. It resembled a chimaera more than any living creature.
A quick count grasped the whole situation and he immediately frowned in displeasure at the upcoming conflict. Akevorax laid out the critical information, “There are 187 gold tiers and 2894 steel tiers. I can kill that guy, but I’m worried that–”
Adret cut in as his voice faded for a second, telling him resolutely, “I’ll deal with them. Just kill it fast so I can focus on everything else.”
She so rarely held onto any confidence that it made the situation almost stoic by her standards. As Adret flew out, streams of silver breath separated and rapidly cut down soul forms, all while he used this moment to test the effectiveness of his new visualisation. If it failed, he could just use his surefire method to kill it, the soul armament. Focused on the foe so far away, to the point where they barely even saw him in response, Akevorax prepared his mana for the spell and imagined the path this lightning would take to reach it.
He said in a gentle yet hate-filled tone, “Soraktum Lit-holos.” A ball of golden Draconis rings appeared, mana exploded outwards from his body to help form the spell, and he carefully watched the lightning dimension transform. All the while, his visualisation of a ruinous spark of nature following his lead remained a clear image to produce the spell desired.
Everything changed as he switched dimensional views, suddenly a world filled with endless black covered him. But it was not complete darkness as trails of white grew through this dark dimension like spiderwebs grown in all dimensions, or chaotic trails of lightning branching out unpredictably without any consistency. Just in front, a region of this white spiderweb grew increasingly darker, not turning to black though, but rather a sharp deep blue. It didn’t remain that way long though.
The blue-shifted region of the web quickly travelled along a major, thicker path which transformed that hue to a vibrant and bright yellow. Then jumping to orange, and further along to a light red, the same he summoned long ago to deal with a behemoth chimaera. And while the region of red tried to move further along this thick path in the dimension, something appeared to push it back at the same time.
He directly measured his spell and the almost inert plane with ease, giving his figures for the spell’s effects long before it finished. When learning Lightning, he struggled with this part so much, as it turned out the spider web-like dimension required him to use modified equations on the fly…
Outrageous due to the fact every little filament of the dimension varied wildly. But he learnt how to do it, casting Lightning over a day ago.
Now as that frightening power formed once more, no longer a pure strike of lightning elements but infused with great runes and a distinct meaning, he saw the direct path in his mind and released the bolt.
From nowhere, a spark of red exploded in the air. The high-pitch squeal as it instantly ionised the oxygen rainfall left a grin on his face… And the bolt travelled the path of least resistance laid out for it. A path directly towards its desired discharge point.
All the world saw was a flash of red. And a kilometre away, what used to be a mithril tier soul form already died. That couldn’t have taken more than 5 seconds, and now just the swarm of weaklings remained. Akevorax glanced over to the thousands of steel tiers in thought of how to lower their numbers in time, but the moment Adret charged, things were already too late.
No longer did the thousands hang back, and those gold tiers unaffected by the array released unfiltered soul power as attacks to the flying dragon. One or two blasts could not shake a Formed Soul’s defences, but hundreds of them? How about a few thousand?
The thing he wished to avoid began in the meantime. Tens of gold tiers gathered together, and around them hundreds of Mind-less steel tiers joined the group. In a process no different to the formation of the behemoth chimaera, the soul forms merged together into a gigantic form, but with no upper limit unlike the man-made creation. From hundreds of creatures no taller than himself or Adret, they continued to jump into the gigantified blob of soul power, their numbers over a thousand in seconds.
He… didn’t have very many methods to deal with this. A factor which made such weak, insignificant creatures utterly terrifying in planes like this.
Something which made even him ready to accept some self-inflicted damage.
Adret killed a little over 100 gold tiers in this time. Nothing to scoff at, but it meant that at least 50 of them made it into the colossal blob west of Akevorax. And as it quickly spread out arms of soul power, those stunned by the arrays quickly assimilated into the mass without restrictions. Already its power exceeded gold tier, inching closer and closer to master tier with every further soul form added. However, he hadn’t moved from his position yet.
As a precaution, he cleaned up about 200 soul forms near the tendrils from that giant one. With almost all the others absorbed, Adret completely cleared them out all that were left, just herself against a giant foe on the brink of master tier… Though, in the domain of pure soul power, it blew things out of the water. Even he felt a bit weaker to it in that regard.
Thankfully, the quantity of energy alone didn’t determine something’s power.
A one-vs-one between the two, as he chose to give Adret’s confidence a chance. What happened he couldn’t possibly predict, but to act against a the worst case scenario, he prepared a very stupid way to kill that mass of soul forms.
“This doesn’t actually just kill me, right? Bah, it shouldn’t,” he rolled his eyes at the prospect of doing maths and focused on the sight ahead. Adret momentarily flew into the barrier and sat in the phoenix fire, any frozen parts thawed and healed in seconds, before heading out just seconds later. What could he possibly ask for more than an exciting battle?